Philip Cunliffe is Associate Professor of International Relations at the UCL, where he researches and teaches on the topics of international order, multinational military intervention, and conflict management. He has 20 years of academic experience, having previously worked as a Senior Lecturer at the University of Kent and a Temporary Lecturer at the UK’s Joint Services Command and Staff College. He obtained his PhD in War Studies from King’s College London. He has also worked as a contributor to the Economist Intelligence Unit.

He is a prolific author and editor, having published eight books and numerous academic articles and chapters on many aspects of international politics and security. His recent books include Taking Control: Sovereignty And Democracy After Brexit (2022), authored with George Hoare, Lee Jones, and Peter Ramsay. Philip is the author of The National Interest (2025).

In this episode, Philip and I think out loud about the importance of politicians and citizenry alike thinking in terms of the national interest, how our political class came to be globally-minded and neglectful of it, why the rolling up of the American Empire will force other nations to think in the national interest, whether liberalism and its assumptions undermine and subvert it, whether the conception of the British national interest will undergo change due to the massive demographic change of recent decades that's accelerating and which will see Britain become less than 50% white British by 2050, why Philip thinks Britain has the political institutions to forge a new nation that sees people of immigrant heritage give up their diasporic connections and pledge fealty to this nation alone and natives give up their internationalist ideals, why John challenges the likelihood of success, and how Philip came to begrudgingly see that academic freedom could only be protected by the state and not self-policed and much, much more.

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